FILE: The Grand Renaissance DamCAIRO – 15 February 2019: After it was announced that the tripartite meeting between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia on the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will resume in February, it was revealed that the meeting could convene in early March. He added that the three countries did not agree where the meeting will convene. When Ethiopia started building the GERD on Blue Nile, from which Egypt’s 80 percent of Nile’s water share (55 billion cubic meters) comes in May 2011, downstream countries (Egypt and Ethiopia) voiced their concern as the dam could affect their water shares. In 2014, however, three countries started a series of tripartite meetings to discuss the possible negative impacts of the GERD and they inked Declaration of Principles to not causing significant damage to Egypt and Sudan on March 15, 2015. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that three countries did not reach a unified decision on the techniques of filling the reservoir of the dam yet.

Source: Egypt Today February 15, 2019 12:22 UTC